› added 11 years ago

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TIL of the “Night-Witches,” a Russian regiment of all-female aviators during WWII. Despite only flying slow, obsolete planes, the regiment is said to have dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs and each pilot to have flown over 1,000 missions.

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BL6d TIL a mysterious young woman known only as “Bionerd23” has spent the last couple of years wandering around the destroyed nuclear plant at Chernobyl, ignoring the radiation danger and occasionally eating radioactive apples. Despite her dozens of YouTube videos, no one seems to know who she is.
neZYY TIL astronomers use the Pleiades as a test pattern for telescopes. The Hawaiians used it as a marker for their new year and during this time there was a celebration where all wars were stopped and harvest was done. The Japanese name for this cluster is Subaru, which means “coming together as a team"
4ewJ TIL that after blogger Jeff Pataky wrote about the incompetence of the Phoenix police department, the Phoenix PD raided his home, seized his laptop, backups and cable modem, handcuffed and detained his female roommate for over three hours, and took his sons out of elementary school.
a8v49 TIL that despite being green the South West Wilderness of Tasmania, Australia is completely uninhabited
1Wd7 TIL that US interrogators tortured an Afghan detainee to death by hanging him by his arms for 4 days and beating his legs so badly they needed amputation. They did this despite most interrogators believing him to be “an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time”